The world is a mask that hides the real world.
Thatâs what everybody suspects, though the world we see wonât let us dwell on it long.
The world has ways - more masks - of getting our attention.
The suspicion sneaks in now and again, between the cracks of everyday existenceâ¦the bird song dips, rises, dips, trails off into blue sky silence before the note that would reveal the shape of a melody that, somehow, would tie everything together, on the verge of unmasking the hidden armature that frames this sky, this tree, this bird, this quivering green leaf, jewels in a crown.â¦
As the song dies, the secret withdraws.
The tree is a mask.
The sky is a mask.
The quivering green leaf is a mask.
The song is a mask.
The singing bird is a mask.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Stormy weather ahead
Climate change doesn't get a lot of media attention these days, of course. We just genetically engineer our way around it: lung-aid membranes to filter toxics, re-engineered cereal grains that thrive on greenhouse gases, etc. I continue to be amazed at how prescient these turn of the century researchers could be:
It's a Jungle Out There!
Stormy weather ahead, warns a University of Oregon geologist [4]:
Wardrobe opportunity! Bikini. Miniskirt. Beach and resort ware....
And that’s a problem because...?
The desert blooms! If that’s the case, bring on the greenhouse gas!
Make mine a double. After all, "It's a Jungle Out There!"
It's a Jungle Out There!
Stormy weather ahead, warns a University of Oregon geologist [4]:
"We know the gathering greenhouse will be warm, but this new information confirms that the contrast between the rainy season and the dry season will increase dramatically," says Greg Retallack, whose study indicating that a troubled greenhouse is brewing is published in the April issue of the journal Geology.
Wardrobe opportunity! Bikini. Miniskirt. Beach and resort ware....
....some 55 million years ago during the late Paleocene epoch....Wyoming warmed from a mean annual temperature of some 55 degrees to a summer-like 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Rainfall in Utah jumped from 16 inches per year to 26 inches per year. As a result, sagebrush deserts of the western U.S. were transformed into sub-humid woodlands.
And that’s a problem because...?
Retallack agrees with previous research indicating that the cause of the late Paleocene greenhouse spike, which lasted less than half a million years, was a catastrophic release of natural gas from undersea ices and permafrost.
"In a remarkable parallel to modern hydrocarbon pollution of the atmosphere, this natural methane oxidized to carbon dioxide and created a global greenhouse event," he explains. "The past methane outburst dwarfed even human consumption of hydrocarbons, and there is a danger that another similar outburst could be triggered by warming of polar and submarine ice due to human activities. Our little warming push could repeat the troubled times of 55 million years ago."
...."During the greenhouse spike of 55 million years ago, tropical mangroves and rain forests spread as far north as England and Belgium and as far south as Tasmania and New Zealand," Retallack says. "Turtles, alligators and palm trees graced Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic, which is now the treeless abode of musk oxen and polar bears."
The bottom line? A new Ice Age is probably the least of our worries.
The desert blooms! If that’s the case, bring on the greenhouse gas!
"Frostbite and snow-blindness are less likely to be in our future than heat stroke and malaria," Retallack asserts. "Mint julep, anyone?"
Make mine a double. After all, "It's a Jungle Out There!"
